The Travelling Hand:A Ludic Dreamacross The Sea
The broken narrative of the game draws on a series of events beginning in the 17th Century, when the Queen Ketevan of Georgia was imprisoned and tortured to death in Shiraz, Iran by Shah Abbas I. Her remains, including the relic of her hand, were brought by a monk to the Augustinian cathedral in Old Goa, India, and remains buried there to this day. In 1989, Georgian film-maker Rezo Tabukashvili, conducted an investigation into the story, in a hope to revive the spirit of the martyr queen and initiated an excavation by the Archaeological Survey of India at the ruined cathedral site to recover the remains. Unfortunately, the film-maker passed away before any significant discoveries were made, but the excavation continues. In 2010, Gayatri Kodikal travelled to Georgia from India to further the trail of Rezo’s investigation and collected material related to the story. The game is a telling of these fascinating stories through a game world that alternates within a dream of the Queen and footage from Rezo’s films.